Editor: Homelessness expert says what Sarasota needs to hear

Saturday

Jul 20, 2013 at 5:48 PM

BILL CHURCH, Executive Editor

Robert Marbut, the latest consultant brought here to save Sarasota from itself, has been successful because he has a skill so rare that you can't buy it online, around St. Armands Circle or even at the Red Barn.

Cynics muse that this skill should be mandated, but legislators then would be breaking the law.

Marbut, the homelessness expert, knows how to listen.

Oh, he's got a plan on how to address the homelessness problem in Sarasota County, but it's not one of those one-size-fits-all deals attached to a five-digit invoice.

During his two-day tour of Sarasota County, he got sucked into obligatory chats with government officials. But as the crowd observed during the Herald-Tribune's Hot Topics forum Thursday, Marbut revels in understanding critical behaviors before focusing on conclusions.

He met homeless residents and heard their stories.

He toured the community, absorbing details such as whether sites had enough utility infrastructures to house a shelter.

He visited various programs for the homeless, praising their efforts but observing that they need to communicate and interact more often with each other.

And when he was done, Marbut spoke what Sarasota needs to hear.

One: We need to quit arguing about answers when we haven't yet asked the right questions.

Two: We need to ask the right questions (and listen, too).

Three: We need to act.

This column isn't about anointing Marbut the cure-that will end panhandling, eradicate residents' safety fears and tidy our parks and streets.

The bigger issue is about community leadership.

Tim Brown, the CEO of design-thinking firm IDEO, is widely credited with the concept of a T-shaped person — someone with deep skills (the vertical "I" bar in the T) who knows how to collaborate with others (the top horizontal bar that makes the T). T-shaped people understand how to develop innovative solutions and work together.

Can communities be T-shaped?

Yes, but we're not there. We have T-shaped organizations and many T-shaped individuals.

And we're a community filled with smart, caring people.

Yet there's a prevailing perception that Sarasota is a place where many of our leaders are too strong-willed to listen.